ARTICLES ABOUT FAMILY GUY BY DATE - PAGE 3

"Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane, 36, is fresh off a pretty darn good 2009. His animated sitcom was nominated for a prime-time Emmy, its spinoff "The Cleveland Show" is a hit for Fox, and "Family Guy: Something, Something, Something Dark Side" was just released on DVD. The Los Angeles Times caught up with the very busy funnyman to talk about the new "Star Wars" spoof, a follow-up to the Griffin family's earlier "Blue Harvest." Why do a "Star Wars" parody? Everybody knows "Star Wars" -- at least, everybody in our audience.

Snoopy is the top dog in pop culture. That's according to the American Kennel Club and pawnation.com, who polled nearly 76,000 people to find out the Top 125 pop culture dogs. They released the results, which included dogs from TV, movies, cartoons, art, music and sports, on Tuesday. Top 10 Dogs in Pop Culture 1. Snoopy 2. Texas A&M's Reveille 3. Scooby Doo 4. Eddie from "Frasier" 5. Pound Puppies toys 6. The "Dogs Playing Poker" paintings 7. The song: "How Much is that Doggie in the Window?"

Watch out "Family Guy"; Matthew McConaughey has you in his sights. Fox on Monday announced plans to develop an animated TV comedy based on McConaughey's brother's life, Variety reports. "Rooster Tales" will follow a redneck sheriff who marries a much younger woman from Mexico and gains her 114-member family as well. "My brother's life is so unbelievable, we had to animate it," McConaughey said.

Here in Smackville, our work is only as good as the silliness, the futility, the ineptness, the bad behavior that our sports world offers. And for that reason, on this national day of turkeys and beets, we want to give our thanks to the following: Youthful indiscretion. Patrick Kane, Joakim Noah, Michael Phelps, Derrick Rose . . . Idiot fans. So many to thank, like Bartlett's own Johnny Macchione, who threw that beer on Phillies outfielder Shane Victorino. Michael Jordan.

Gleeful noise The hits keep coming for the cast of Fox's "Glee." The whole gang is being presented with a Hollywood Diversity Award, according to Reuters, for their portrayal of a high school glee club culled from a diverse bunch including a gay student, a boy in a wheelchair and a black girl -- among others. Family feud Lindsay Lohan's latest salvo against her father? She calls him a "lunatic" who "doesn't even deserve such a title since he's never been around in my life other than when he'd threaten me & my family."

Expect lots of Microsoft jokes on "Family Guy" in the near future. Like, a lot of them. The computer company has pulled out as sponsor of the upcoming "Family Guy Presents: Seth and Alex's Almost Live Comedy Show," according to The Associated Press and other reports. The show, which stars "Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane, "was not a fit with the Windows brand," the company said in a statement.

Word of the day "Droid" Mysterious challenger to the iPhone, thought to be a joint venture between Verizon and Motorola, coming in November. And, if the name is any indication, moving the robots one step closer to world domination. The list Top 10 all-time most-viewed TV shows on Hulu.com: 1. "Family Guy" 2. "The Office" 3. "Saturday Night Live" 4. "Arrested Development" 5. "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" 6. "American Dad!" 7. "The Simpsons" 8. "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" 9. "House" 10. "The Colbert Report" Desperately seeking Five hot Internet searches Tuesday, as tracked by Google Trends: "Adam Jasinski" "Balloon boy story" "Baby food recall" "Sahel Kazemi" "Leah Ignagni pics" And the winner is ... Despite cost overruns and poor testing with some audiences, the acclaimed "Where the Wild Things Are" is performing well at the box office.

It happens every fall. The new TV season arrives, and we gaze with anticipation at the schedule, only to discover that a favorite show is missing in action. ("Life" apparently doesn't have any.) On the other hand, some shows inexplicably keep going and going and going. (Call it the "According to Jim" effect.) Here are five series that we just can't believe are not dead yet. 'Scrubs' (ABC) This wacky medical series looked like a sure goner when NBC canceled it. But after resurfacing on ABC and shooting what was thought to be a series finale, it refuses to flat-line.

The folks behind "Family Guy" have been saying some of the most alarming things. Like "sweet and funny" and "sense of family." They are using these words to describe "The Cleveland Show" (7:30 p.m. Sunday, WFLD-Ch. 32), a "Family Guy" spinoff that premieres Sunday. Coming from Seth McFarlane's crew, such descriptions are like tiny time bombs disguised as rubber ducks. Because, while executive producer Rich Appel may be sincere when he says "The Cleveland Show" is "kinder and gentler" than its predecessor, he is working from the same warped palette that gave us Stewie, the erudite and profane baby who most recently beat his dog to a bloody pulp for laughs on the Emmy broadcast.